Netflix series features professor as expert
Article By: Denise Ray
University of North Georgia professor Dr. Paul Johnson was a featured expert in "Files of the Unexplained," a Netflix series. Each of the eight episodes of the Vox production includes witness testimony, news stories and expert analysis.
Johnson's episode highlights blobs that rained from the sky in Oakville, Washington, in 1994. Described as "transparent, gelatinous blobs," this phenomenon caused illness among townspeople and death among livestock.
With a doctoral degree in microbiology and molecular genetics, and 20 years of work in infectious diseases and environmental microbiology, Johnson was called upon for his hypothesis.
A resident gathered some samples of the blobs that proved helpful in early research, but they have since disappeared.
"With the samples being gone, there's no way to conclusively say what it was," Johnson said. "There are some things you can say it wasn't, though. Blue ice is one. It was neither blue nor frozen."
Johnson also ruled out the suggestion of pulverized jellyfish.
"That's not possible, because when they tested the sample, they didn't find jellyfish cells. They found bacterial cells," he said.
His appearance took two days to film, Johnson said, and he described the experience as "interesting."
"I think this was interesting scientifically. One of the things that I liked was that it points out a couple things. One is how little we know about the world around us. Every day we learn new things. We can apply what we learn and make predictions and such, but they're not going to be perfect," Johnson said. "The other thing I like about this is this wasn't perfect. They didn't have set answers. We know all these things, know all this data, but we still can't get the answer yet."
Johnson said he was impressed by the number of people outside the science field who were curious about the phenomenon. He encourages potential viewers to consider the subject matter.
"Maybe they will be interested enough to look into how this works," Johnson said. "Maybe they will want to go into science now or something like that."
Student earns NASA opportunity for summer
黑料正能量 junior Rylee Chafin has been selected for the prestigious NASA Student Airborne Research Program. The eight-week internship will be held in Richmond, Virginia, this summer.
Poultry students shine at national contest
黑料正能量 students finished fifth overall at the 76th annual Ted Cameron National Poultry Judging Contest held April 2-4 at Mississippi State University.
ARC includes almost 100 presentations
Students gave 69 poster presentations and 24 oral presentations at 黑料正能量鈥檚 30th Annual Research Conference, held March 21 at 黑料正能量's Dahlonega Campus.
Poultry students finish first in national event
黑料正能量 established the first chapter of the Professional Agricultural Student (PAS) Organization in the South, and its team finished first in the nation in the Poultry Specialist career area the National PAS conference.